BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) - All jurors have been accounted for following Hurricane Matthew and testimony is set to resume in the trial of a Georgia man accused of intentionally leaving his 22-month-old son in a hot SUV to die, the judge presiding over the case said Tuesday.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Mary Staley Clark said during a brief hearing that testimony will resume Wednesday, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (https://on-ajc.com/2d5ewWM) reported.
“I’m glad all of y’all made it through this,” Staley Clark said of the hurricane. “It’s been an interesting experience.”
A dozen of the jurors showed up at the courthouse, and court officials were able to contact the remaining four, the newspaper quoted Court Administrator Tom Charron as saying. The trial had recessed Thursday ahead of the storm.
“The full complement will be here tomorrow,” Charron said. “They all seemed ready to go and are in good spirits.”
Prosecutors say Justin Ross Harris, who is charged with murder, intentionally killed his son Cooper by leaving him for hours in a vehicle parked outside his workplace at Home Depot’s corporate offices outside Atlanta, in Cobb County. Harris had moved from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to Georgia in 2012 to take a job with Home Depot as a computer technician.
Harris faces life in prison if convicted of murder.
Prosecutors opened their case earlier this month by telling jurors that Harris was seeking sex outside his marriage, and left his toddler to die so he could “escape from one life into another.”
Defense lawyers have said the death was a tragic accident, and that Harris simply forgot that the boy was in his vehicle.
Pretrial publicity prompted the trial’s move to Brunswick, 275 miles from the Atlanta suburbs.
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